All of my unconscious fears were in my face about letting go of the current identity. A lot of the thoughts that came up were fear-based and false, so I had to work to let them go.
The question of boundaries is a major question of the Jewish people because the Jews are the great experts of crossing boundaries. They have a sense of identity inside themselves that doesn't permit them to cross boundaries with other people.
I found a greater identity with my own emotions in the Armenian culture as I grew older, as well as from the beginning, although I didn't know anything about it.
I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them.
A product is most easily sold when it has an identity. So they wrap you all up and put a label on you. And then that's what you have to be. But what I'm looking for is the opportunity to explore what I can do, probing the limits, learning.
What draws me to family... if I were a psychiatrist, I'd say an enormous amount of unresolved personal material. If I were an anthropologist, I'd say families are at the root of social structures - they shape our identity, our belief systems - and so I find them fascinating. Also, I love the idea that families have narratives that are essentially the family story that is passed along generation to generation - and the rifts start when people question the story.
A secure pluralistic society requires communities that are educated and confident both in the identity and depth of their own traditions and in those of their neighbours.
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.